1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector for connecting a flat-type circuit board to another member to connect, such as another circuit board.
2. Description of the Related Art
For a flat-type circuit board, a flexible printed board (FPC), a flat cable, and so on are known. For an electrical connector to connect the flat-type circuit board to another member, such as another circuit board, for example, a connector disclosed in Japan Patent Application Publication No. 2004-227918 is known.
The connector of the above patent has a pivoting support section at the end of an elastic arm formed on an insulator (housing) to be mounted on a printed circuit board, which is connected to the flat-type circuit board. A lever made of resin is freely rotatably supported at the pivoting support section. A cam section is formed on the lever, and the gap between the cam and the above-described printed circuit board varies depending on the rotational position of the lever. For using such connector, by rotating the lever toward the open position so as to make the above-described gap large, and inserting a flexible circuit board therein, and then reducing the gap by rotating the lever toward the close position, the flexible printed circuit board is pressed onto the printed circuit board, and the circuit boards are electrically connected.
In the connector of the above Patent Reference, however, the lever to press the flexible printed circuit board is formed by molding resin, and is made thick so as to be resistant to rotary movement and to the pressing force. Accordingly, the connector size has to be large for the thickness of the lever. In the connector of this type, it is required to be so-called “low profile” by reducing the size of the connector in the direction vertical to the printed board surface, i.e. in the thickness direction of the lever, when the lever is pressing the printed circuit board. In Patent Reference 1, however, such demand is not satisfied.
In addition, since the above-described lever is made of resin and is not electroconductive, the lever and the flexible printed circuit board contacting with the lever can not be electrically conducted to each other. For this reason, the performances can not be improved to have a shielding performance and grounding performance, for example, by using the surfaces. Such problem is extremely disadvantageous in case of a connector for high-speed transmission.